Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is an idea in psychology proposed by American psychologist Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper future “A Theory of Human Motivation” in the journal Psychological Review. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans’ innate curiosity.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs isย a theory of motivation which states that five categories of human needs dictate an individual’s behavior. Those needs are physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs.
Future of humans
The UN Population Division report of 2022 projects world population to continue growing after 2050, although at a steadily decreasing rate, to peak at 10.4 billion in 2086, and then to start a slow decline to about 10.3 billion in 2100 with a growth rate at that time of -0.1%.
This projected growth of population, like all others, depends on assumptions about vital rates. For example, the chart below shows that the UN Population Division assumes that Total fertility rate (TFR), which has been steadily declining since 1963, will continue to decline, at varying paces depending on circumstances in individual regions, to a below-replacement level of 1.8 by 2100. Between now (2020) and 2100, regions with TFR currently below this rate, for example Europe, will see TFR rise. Regions with TFR above this rate will see TFR continue to decline.
Higher population will lead to a greater consumption in future of non-renewable resources, leading to a faster depletion of natural resources. more we consume the resources early we die because of food, and our needs.
Higher population will lead to greater pollution levels in air, water and land. Higher pollution is associated with a range of health issues, such as cancer and asthma. The pollution also harms animals and plants.
Soil degradation. To feed a growing planet, we have seen serious degrading of farmland. This is due to factors, such as overgrazing, use of chemicals, climate change and use of chemicals.
End of humanity
#1.Pamlin and Armstrong also express concern aboutย geoengineering. In such an extreme warming scenario, things like spraying sulfate particles into the stratosphere to cool the Earth may start to look attractive to policymakers or even private individuals. But the risks are unknown, and Pamlin and Armstrong conclude that “the biggest challenge is that geoengineering may backfire and simply make matters worse.”
As with nuclear war, not just any pandemic qualifies. Past pandemics โ like the Black Death or the Spanish flu of 1918 โ have killed tens of millions of people, but failed to halt civilization. The authors are interested in an even more catastrophic scenario.
Is that plausible? Medicine has improved dramatically since the Spanish flu. But on the flip side, transportation across great distances has increased, and more people are living in dense urban areas. That makes worldwide transmission much more of a possibility.
Even a pandemic that killed off most of humanity would surely leave a few survivors who have immunity to the disease. The risk isn’t that a single contagion kills everyone; it’s that a pandemic kills enough people that the rudiments of civilization โ agriculture, principally โ can’t be maintained and the survivors die off.
Future bad governance
This is perhaps the vaguest item on the list โ a kind of meta-risk. Most of the problems enumerated above would require some kind of global coordinated action to address. Climate change is the most prominent example, but in the future things like nanotech and AI regulation would need to be coordinated internationally.
The danger is that governance structures often fail and sometimes wind up exacerbating the problems they were trying to fix. A policy failure in dealing with a threat that could cause human extinction would thus have hugely negative consequences.
